ITU designates LTE-Advanced as “True 4G”

Late last week, the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) finally agreed on which technologies qualify for the IMT-Advanced specification. The ITU has decided that LTE-Advanced (which is a collection of standards defined in upcoming UMTS Releases 9 and 10) and WirelessMAN-Advanced (commonly known as WiMAX 2) both qualify and are officially designated as IMT-Advanced technologies.

As mentioned in our article about LTE, IMT-Advanced was the original set of specifications that determined whether a technology could be considered to be “4G” by the ITU (who owns the global trademark for “4G”). The North American carriers pushed the issue and managed to get the ITU to revise its specification for 4G to include any significantly evolved wireless technology, which allowed HSPA+, WiMAX, and LTE to be marked as 4G technologies. Prior to this, none of those were considered 4G.

What’s so special about IMT-Advanced? Well, IMT-Advanced systems would include features and capabilities that are light years ahead of what we currently have in 3G (which the ITU defined under the IMT-2000 specification).

Sustained data rate of 100Mbps for mobile connections and 1Gbps for fixed connections

Automatic network resource reorganization on demand

Scalable frequency bandwidth all the way up to (at least) 40MHz

Seamless and smooth handover among cells and networks, especially for global roaming

Support for high quality, high definition multimedia services

LTE-Advanced and WirelessMAN-Advanced were both submitted to the ITU two years ago to be evaluated for IMT-Advanced compliance. As of January 18, both are now officially designated as IMT-Advanced compliant. Think of IMT-Advanced as the final stage of 4G. Current LTE and WiMAX networks are essentially “transitional 4G” technologies.

Some people out there are saying that IMT-Advanced technologies are likely to be marketed as 5G. That’s not going to happen. Generational leaps in wireless technology happen every ten years. First generation analog circuit-switched networks came into existence and commercial deployment in the early 1980s. In the early 1990s, second generation digital circuit-switched networks replaced them (GSM). In the early 2000s, third generation digital hybrid circuit-switched/packet-switched networks were deployed (GPRS and 3G). Now, fourth generation digital packet-switched networks are replacing third-generation hybrid networks. With 4G networks now being deployed for commercial use, 5G research is just starting and it would be foolish to market IMT-Advanced technology as 5G because it would give consumers the impression that wireless network technology changes too much too quickly. That might cause consumers to become apathetic to network advancements and make them less likely to buy new devices, which cuts into the bottom lines of network operators.

With WiMAX network operators across the globe moving to LTE TDD (or TD-LTE), WirelessMAN-Advanced adoption is likely to be nearly non-existent. However, nearly all network operators deploying LTE (in FDD or TDD form) will deploy LTE-Advanced. That does not mean that everyone will experience all of these fantastic benefits, though.

In the United States (and likely all over the Americas), carriers don’t have the kind of spectral assets that are required to get all the benefits of LTE-Advanced. At least, not alone. If the carriers decided to come together into a spectrum/network sharing agreement of sorts that would allow them to pool their assets together, then it could be done. However, carriers in the United States are unlikely to do this. Without doing some sort of asset sharing arrangement, carriers in the United States cannot offer the kind of speeds or network quality that their European and Asian counterparts can.

In Europe and Asia, asset sharing agreements are extremely common and are used to help meet goals that network operators are unlikely to meet by themselves. This is important because European and Asian governments heavily regulate and determine what the network operators can do and how they can do it. As a result, network operators in Europe and Asia typically use network technologies that are interoperable and share assets so that they can be pooled together to be used in the most efficient manner. This means that LTE-Advanced in its most complete form is likely to appear in Asia or Europe first. That does not mean Asia or Europe will be where the first LTE-Advanced network will be deployed, just that Asia and Europe will be where the best LTE-Advanced networks are deployed.

LTE-Advanced will not mean much for mobile users in terms of speed. But it will mean that there will be higher capacities per MHz on mobile networks. Additionally, fixed mobile convergence in LTE-Advanced will allow for DSL internet connections in rural areas that use LTE as the backend instead of the landline networks. Going forward, we can expect low-cost DSL to be implemented in rural areas with LTE-Advanced technology because it is much cheaper to deploy. This will hopefully bring down the cost of fixed broadband even more.

Will LTE-Advanced be all that it promises to be and more? Well, I don’t know. We’ll just have to wait and see. For now, we should enjoy the fantastic experiences that 4G networks provide us and be ready to experience even more amazing things no matter where we are.

Tagged In

Looks like the US will continue to be a third world country when it comes to broadband.

Anonymous

Thanks FCC, limiting the advancement of carrier aggregated networking for years to come. Kudos!

Jeff Jones

I suppose after another decade we (the people) can always take the spectrum back and build our own unified network.

Edward Ovalles

I agree with you Jeff. I think we should all buy or take back the spectrum that is entitled to us and have a Cube Light Radio in our homes connected to our internet access (e.g FIOS, Cable, etc).

ephemeris

Dont see in any of this stories spec. exactly data showing stats in ‘light-years’advancement. However handsets are getting more stealthy with advancements in silicon technology. Then when if the infrastructure is somewhat compatible,(nice photo),that is some kind of interchangable upgradable platforms. Nicking the bud wouldn’t seem all that much monumental.

When though that in any map of the telcos services,there is many areas that are w/o the greatest present functionality,just getting 4g on the showroom floor.

In the stats it shows 100Mbs for mobile connections. Then 1Gbs for ‘stationary connections’…

Whats a ‘stationary connection ? Nice to see some benches on the latest and affordable,rather than the touchy feeling multicolored textured articles,.. . or some kind of relavent comparison with a future twist.

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